What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Serial_Apologist]

Dick Twardzik with Carson Smith & Pete Littman playing 'Bess, You Is My Woman Now' in 1954:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=OjQeY3O3YGg

JR

When Keith Tippett attended the Barry Summer School in 1967, where Graham Collier was among his tutors, he asked Graham whose piano playing style his own reminded him of, to which Collier replied "Dick Twardzik". "I'd never heard of Dick Twardzik", Keith said.

[Stanfordian]

‘Adam’s Apple’ - Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter with Herbie Hancock, Reginald Workman & Joe Chambers
Blue Note (1966)

[Serial_Apologist]

‘Adam’s Apple’ - Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter with Herbie Hancock, Reginald Workman & Joe Chambers
Blue Note (1966)

Probably my favourite among the Shorter albums from that time.

[Jazzrook]

John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman & Elvin Jones playing 'Blue Train' at L'Olympia, Paris in November, 1961:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=fERAar1cXeI

& Stockholm,November 1961:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=JHKSvKFlfak

JR

[Joseph K]

John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, McCoy Tyner, Reggie Workman & Elvin Jones playing 'Blue Train' at L'Olympia, Paris in November, 1961:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=fERAar1cXeI

JR

[Ian Thumwood]

The new Branford Marsalis record is pretty impressive. This is a quartet at the top of it's form. I had read some reviews that this was one of Marsalis' most way out and challenging records yet my perception is that this is simply a band demonstrating how effective they can be if they play together for a long time. It includes music by Andrew Hill and Keith Jarrett although the latter's "The wind up" gets a robust kick-in which is pretty untypical of the pianist's work. I feel that this is a very special band who can rapidly change the dynamics. I think this is high class jazz of the highest order.

Always nice to return to Branford who I find pretty reliable on disc - even better live though!!

[Stanfordian]

‘The Soothsayer’ - Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter with James Spaulding, Freddie Hubbard, McCoy Tyner, Ron Carter, Joe Chambers & Tony Williams
Blue Note (1970)

[Stanfordian]

Probably my favourite among the Shorter albums from that time.

Yes, Shorter is a most talented artist.

[Jazzrook]

Birdland All-Stars In Europe with Miles Davis, Lester Young, Rene Urtreger, Pierre Michelot, Christian Garros & Bud Powell in Hamburg, November 7, 1956:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=97Je6YPHD80

JR

[Jazzrook]

John Coltrane's only live performance of 'A Love Supreme' in Antibes, July 26, 1965:

https://www.openculture.com/2014/04/john-coltrane-performs-a-love-supreme-and-other-classics-in-antibes-july-1965.html

JR

[Joseph K]

John Coltrane's only live performance of 'A Love Supreme' in Antibes, July 26, 1965:

https://www.openculture.com/2014/04/john-coltrane-performs-a-love-supreme-and-other-classics-in-antibes-july-1965.html

JR

[elmo]

Jezz Nelson's R3 "Jazz File" on Dick Twardzik from about a decade ago. Really excellent, this is part 2.

http://youtu.be/37hTeyLHbwY

Very timely Bluesie - Fresh Sound have just released a previously unissued session by the Jay Migliori Dick Twardzick Jazz Workshop Quintet Rec 1954.
Jay Migliori Tenor, Dick Twardzik Pno, Johnnie Rae Vibes, Jack Carter Bass, Bob Atcheson Drs. Boston May 1954

Have not received my copy of this yet so can't comment on Twardzik's solo work - hopefully there is plenty of it.

elmo

[Ian Thumwood]

Very timely Bluesie - Fresh Sound have just released a previously unissued session by the Jay Migliori Dick Twardzick Jazz Workshop Quintet Rec 1954.
Jay Migliori Tenor, Dick Twardzik Pno, Johnnie Rae Vibes, Jack Carter Bass, Bob Atcheson Drs. Boston May 1954

Have not received my copy of this yet so can't comment on Twardzik's solo work - hopefully there is plenty of it.

elmo

The first item I ever ordered from Amazon was the Lonehill CD of "The complete Dick Twardzik" and this included some solo rehearsal performances. Amongst the tracks were a number of free improvisations rather in the same way of working at Lennie Tristano. More than any other jazz musician of that generation, Twardzik is easy to categorise incorrectly and the partnership with Chet Baker somewhat obscures the fact that is recorded work is effectively just youthful musings. The "official" recordings such as "Crutch for a crab", "Albuquerque Social Swim" and "Yellow Tango" are amongst the most intriguing of the early fifties but the privately and poorly recorded rehearsal material featuring a badly out of tune piano on this CD maybe offer more clues where he would have ended up. I think had he avoided drugs he would have moved away from the kind of players he had performed with in his early twenties and would have probably had a place in the avant garde akin to someone like Paul Bley. He was a virtuoso pianist and maybe the most tantalising "what if" in jazz at that time when many players died way too young. The stuff on the Lonehill record might have seemed like an interesting starting point had he gone on to record in the 1960s and beyond. "The girl from Greenland" with Chet Baker would seem like a curiosity performed with a more conservative leader as opposed to a defining performance. He was ahead of his time but even more unfortunate than Herbie Nichols in leaving a poorly documented presence in the studio. You cannot say with any certainty where his career would have landed yet given that he died when he was only 24, the potential would have been for him to come to artistic maturity at the same time Free Jazz started to dominate. For me, the recorded output seem like the youthful explorations of someone whose musical development would have been far more interesting as the Bud Powell influences would have eventually have been shed for something more personal.

[Jazzrook]

Rare footage of some astonishing solo piano from Cecil Taylor in Montreux, 1974(which appeared on the CD 'Silent Tongues'):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsdkKnTB2vI

JR

[Stanfordian]

‘Them Dirty Blues’ - The 'Cannonball' Adderley Quintet
Julian 'Cannonball' Adderley, featuring Nat Adderley with Bobby Timmons,
Barry Harris, Sam Jones & Louis Hayes
Riverside (1960)